The Matrix trilogy may be the most important, revolutionary and metaphysically dissected movies of our time. My personal take on this masterpiece is that the Matrix trilogy can be an allegory of the very challenging journey to personal liberation. Just as in most myths, legends and allegorical parables; every character is a component of our beings...Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, The Oracle, Agent Smith, The Architect and The Merovingian are all components of our inner reality...our psyche. The contentious dance between our conscious (the matrix) and our sub-conscious core being (Zion), the battle for self autonomy between our egos and our 'higher minds'. The collective ego being 'the Matrix' of our imposed reality, the world pulled over our eyes. Our collective and individual ego structures clamoring for 'control', predominance over our consciousness. Our collective and individualized egos are our persona, our seeming individuation in this world; as opposed to our true selves, our innate connectedness, our Oneness. That dynamic is a polarity of being that requires constant maintenance to preserve balance, balance of collective psychic connection while still cultivating an individualized beingness. Collectively the condition of this polarity between communal consciousness and individual being is cyclical. The ego does not see itself as human, it wants to be an entity all to itself but it requires human energy to be. It needs to make humans believe they are ego, to forget that we are human. Neo at the train station was his purgatory, limbo...stuck between the worlds. The picture above says 'Mobil Ave' , Mobile is an anagram for Limbo. Neo had made it to the source, the Architect; and found out the true nature of what he actually was (not the One), but Neo being an anomaly needed to make the only meaningful decision in the whole movie. Neo chose Love (in the form of saving Trinity). After relating the disappointing news to Morpheus, the news that Neo was not "the One' and that the fable of 'The One' was in fact a fable created by the architect to appeal to the anomaly's (Neo) egoic heroic sense and influence his decision of further aggression and war over Love. That encounter with the architect at the source left Neo between worlds...between The Matrix world and the real world.

Personally I gained much depth of insight from these three characters in the Matrix; the Architect, the Oracle and the Merovigian. Those three characters made only a handful of appearances in the Matrix trilogy, but their presence was the luminescence of the whole story, for myself it was the story of their own management of truth. Those three were broad but concise expressions of the human dilemma of being. The Architect was the epitome of egoic being; disdainful of connection to others. He sat alone in his 'monitoring' room attending to the expression of his sublime 'equation'. Self satisfied and in power. Nothing need change, the equation has been written and will be adhered to. Never mind that the equation was never fully balanced and hence never solved. The architect simply inserted a variable for the imbalance, an 'anomaly' which was Neo.

The Oracle was a program written by the architect to 'understand' humans, not a benevolent understanding at first, but understanding to manipulate humans. After a while The Oracle gained a fondness for humans and she turned her mission inside out, she gave humans understanding of the Matrix. The Oracle understood the past, but her purpose was 'seeing the future', her prophecies initially were to simply guide humanity (Neo) to make the same decision over and over with each iteration of the anomaly. But this time she was guiding for a different outcome, for Neo to choose for Love, not loyalty and fight along side Zion. Neo's love for Trinity was metaphor for his masculine/feminine aspects balancing; Humanity becoming whole. The Merovingian was a control program designed to conceive of 'causality', to reside deep in the sub-conscious of humans and effect 'causation. Where as The Oracle could see the future 'effect' of someone or something; The Merovingian could see the cause, the motivation of anything, anyone or situation. He was an extremely powerful program at one time. But just like The Oracle; The Merovingian became expendable as the anomaly (Neo) came into play. Both the Merovingian and Oracle became 'rogue' programs. To ensure his own safety The Merovingian took 'zee Keymaker' hostage. When he was confronted at his 'Club Hel' by Morpheus, Neo and Trinity who were sent there by The Oracle to get the Keymaker. The Merovingian knew immediately why they wanted 'zee Keymaker', they were sent by The Oracle, she wanted the Keymaker for her own 'protection from deletion. The Merovingian was not invested one way or another how the struggle between humans and machines was resolved...The Merovingian was simply concerned with his own survival, with mastering the 'causality' in the sub-conscious of humanity. To keep his 'program' running in the dark recesses of the psyche of humanity. The Oracle invested her whole existence in the struggle's outcome, her innate familiarity with, and acquired deep understanding and growing fondness for humans meant humanity was necessary to her own existence. For her program, humanity was her purpose and power in the Matrix. Humanity sought out the Oracle to understand it's own self. The Merovingian simply reveled in his power and his mastery of 'causation'. Causation and power was the Merovingian's major ambition.

For a deeper understanding that will offer deep pondering and reflection I submit that when viewing the Matrix trilogy again pay rapt attention to the dialogues with The Architect, The Oracle and The Merovingian. Consider the roles those arch-types play in your quest for personal liberation of your energy from egoic illusion.

In Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Present introduces Ebenezer Scrooge to -"two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable," and explains to Scrooge, "This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom..."

The universally known Christmas story by Charles Dickens, ‘Christmas Carol’, and its main character Ebenezer Scrooge. ‘Christmas Carol’ is brimming with social and mystical truths. I've always found the above line to be particularly insightful and chilling...the truth in it is undeniable. Dickens’ use of language imagery was powerful. The subjective connection of the boy as Ignorance and the girl as want; assigning those conditions to the masculine and the feminine.

The spirit of Christmas Present was actually showing Scrooge's own inner condition. The boy ignorant and neglectful of his sacred feminine, his sacred feminine in want. It was also a reflection of Western capitalist society in general. The celebration of blind, aggressive, materialist acquisition and the relegation of the maternal, nurturing, universally receptive feminine quality to be neglected, abandoned, overlooked and cast aside. It’s a cultural, psychological and spiritual image of the disease of imbalance, as much as it was a statement about the rampant poverty of that time, even more so today.Dickens use of the spirit of Christmas Present to voice that truth is telling also. The ignorant boy is more fearful than the impoverished girl. Ignorant, grasping, aggression, is a fearsome force. The impoverished can be controlled. But, poverty (want), married to ignorant aggression, is what Rulers most fear. Dickens wrote Scrooge about fifty years after the brutal French revolution. That event was still fresh in the minds of Europeans. One of Dickens greatest works is "A Tale of two Cities", which the setting was the French revolution. The opening line of that novel is "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times". Describing the vast economic gap between the few haves and the many have nots, and a middle class in panic trying to hold their shrinking position.

Dickens refers to Scrooge as a 'squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner'. A man extremely wealthy, but living a lifestyle like he was impoverished. He was a hoarder of wealth, not wealthy of mind and spirit, not the least bit happy. Scrooge was a sick man, a man that projected his emptiness onto the world. He only found value in increasing the numbers on an accounting sheet. Other people had no value to his life. The story sheds light on the reasons Scrooge became emotionally crippled. His father abandoning him at a boarding school, the death of his sister, Fan, she was his only meaningful, loving, relationship. Which also symbolized the death of feminine balance in his life, the demise of the ability to lovingly nurture. His fiancé, Belle, leaving him because of his ruthless obsession with acquiring wealth. All of those events in Scrooge's life occurred around Christmas. Christmas being the recurring sub-conscious theme which requires Scrooge to heal from his emotional wounds. Scrooge only develops a deep hatred for the season, a deep abiding resistance to facing the pain of his past. He sublimates the pain by burrowing into work and further enriching himself, riches that he has no clue how to enjoy, the wealth is not a salve for his soul. It's a suffocating obsession that he neurotically pursues. It's all that matters to Scrooge; possessing, hoarding, with no idea of how to relax, how to enjoy, how to love someone and nurture the relationship, his need to heal.

Scrooge's soul sickness brings him to a 'dark night of the soul' one Christmas eve. His sub-consciously buried, neglected wounds became too painful to ignore anymore. Which brings us right back to the original theme of this piece..."They are Man's,' said the Spirit of Christmas Present, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,for on his brow I see that written which is Doom’, unless thewriting be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching outits hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye.Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.And abide the end."

This is America and most of the western world today, bringing forth angry ignorance and depressive want as offspring. Western capitalism’s 'free market' commerce economically strangling more of its population every year. Deny it America, at your peril, slander those who try to address it, admit it only to further divide and entrench your malfeasance, make it worse at your own jeopardy. America your dark night of the soul is at hand, will you see the damage you're doing and bring purposeful transformation to your injustices and the pain?It's Christmas...I'm an optimistic man.